Common sense has prevailed (see bold text)! "The final decision on window controls for 10.04 LTS is as follows: the window controls will remain on the left, however the order will change to be (from left) close, minimize, maximise. The decision is based on the view that putting the close button in the corner will be most familiar to many users, even if the particular choice of corner is not."

So does Gnome. The issue isn't whether it is customizable, the issue is sane defaults. I think they made a terrible choice moving the buttons to the left but in the opposite order of the familiar commercial interface that does that. It would have been just as silly to keep them on the right of the titlebar but reverse the order. By keeping them on the left but in a common order, they have (in my opinion) made the best choice possible.

There are times when being different from the mainstream is good, but when it comes to deeply ingrained things like muscle memory, it's best not to make it so unfamiliar people are immediately turned off. The last thing Desktop Linux needs is to turn away new users.